(no subject)
I just shat this out:
The domination over youth has always been particularly interesting. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and other more widely accepted forms of discrimination have an essential flaw that ageism does not. In those, it simply cannot be proven that the oppressed group is actually inferior in any way. For us, as youth as well as students, we face some very real limits to both our knowledge and our ability. Indeed, that is the justification for us to be in school in the first place.
These limits, however, have been abused. Firstly, they are used as tools of domination by both teachers and peers. Secondly, contemporary educational modes have given the authority to decide about our intellectual limits to completely alien and disconnected forces. These authorities tell us that only certain modes of thinking are substantial and, conveniently enough, that through their institutions is the only way to succeed in those modes.
There are a few different ways that we can think of to help this situation. I propose that, instead of revolution or boycott, we work within another process that would make those both less necessary and more possible. I intend, in this essay and in further work, to find out what we can do as students to use the immense resources and power of the current educational authority to make what have been historically their institutions ours, as they damned well should be.
The domination over youth has always been particularly interesting. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and other more widely accepted forms of discrimination have an essential flaw that ageism does not. In those, it simply cannot be proven that the oppressed group is actually inferior in any way. For us, as youth as well as students, we face some very real limits to both our knowledge and our ability. Indeed, that is the justification for us to be in school in the first place.
These limits, however, have been abused. Firstly, they are used as tools of domination by both teachers and peers. Secondly, contemporary educational modes have given the authority to decide about our intellectual limits to completely alien and disconnected forces. These authorities tell us that only certain modes of thinking are substantial and, conveniently enough, that through their institutions is the only way to succeed in those modes.
There are a few different ways that we can think of to help this situation. I propose that, instead of revolution or boycott, we work within another process that would make those both less necessary and more possible. I intend, in this essay and in further work, to find out what we can do as students to use the immense resources and power of the current educational authority to make what have been historically their institutions ours, as they damned well should be.